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HD Radio Recording In the US?

unreceivedpacket writes "The public radio stations I listen to have been advertising their conversion to HD Radio format for some time. They advertise multiple channels, their second channel playing all classical, all the time. I am interested in purchasing a receiver so I can listen to this extra content, and was also hoping to find a receiver with a built-in recorder so I could time-shift programs that are not otherwise available as legal pod-casts. My initial queries have returned few models that support any kind of digital recording, and the existing ones seem out of production or sorely lacking features. Is this the state of Digital Radio in the US? Are there any legal recording devices for HD Radio? Any good solutions for recording and time-shifting, perhaps through Linux?"

3 of 303 comments (clear)

  1. Liberate the Spectrum. by Erris · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Liberate the specturm or you will suffer digital restrictions. Vista's checking of line voltages to make sure no one has clipped on an analog recording device should tell you where all of this is going. The RIAA has been screaming about "radio pirates" for 50 years. Digital broadcast gives them a way to close the "analog hole" they so dread. If the makers colude with broadcasters, only "authorized" players will have keys to decode "HD" signals. If the specturm is liberated, everything will be high quality because no one but big publishers wants to degrade music.

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    DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
  2. Please read before posting... please! by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you know of a solution, don't write it in this discussion!

    Please be aware that not everyone who browses slashdot has our best interests at heart. Any commercial method to circumvent DRM will be jumped upon by our broadcast content overlords. Any non-commercial method will be legislated out of existence... the longer the media cartels remain in the dark, the longer we have to enjoy our right to timeshift content.

    Like usenet... the first rule of usenet is that you don't talk about usenet.

    Sorry for the pessimism and tinfoilhattery, but this entire ask slashdot question just screams "honeypot" to me, even if that wasn't its intent.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  3. Re:Go Satellite instead... by jandrese · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The downside is of course that while Satellite radio works everywhere, HD radio only works if you're within 50 feet of the transmitter. I live in an area theoretically covered in HD channels, but actually pulling any of them in reliably requires a substantial antenna and a very good tuner.

    I really think the FCC screwed the pooch by giving Ibiquity a monopoly on HD radio with their halfassed system. Now you can pay a licensing fee to build the receiver for a service that barely works at all. I was originally excited about HD radio too because I thought it would be like Digital TV, where you can distribute a crystal clear picture out to where the channel would normally get a bit fuzzy and deal more elegantly with having channels directly adjacent to yours (a big problem around here, where sometimes stations will have stations on either side of the dial and most radio receivers will end up mixing your signal with the adjacent ones randomly when you're driving down the road). Instead we have a system where you practically never get an HD lock.

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    I read the internet for the articles.